A 25-Game Skid, but All Is Not Lost for the Sixers

From left, Michael Carter-Williams, Henry Sims, Elliot Williams and Thaddeus Young in the Sixers’ loss Monday, their 25th in a row.

Eric Gay / Associated Press

By JERÉ LONGMAN

March 26, 2014

SAN ANTONIO — The visitor’s locker room. Where was it? Brett Brown had been inside the AT&T Center hundreds of times over a dozen years as director of player development and assistant coach for the Spurs. But now Brown was head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, walking an unfamiliar corridor. He had lost his way, not unlike his team, which had been adrift for two months.

This swing through Texas — Monday in San Antonio, Thursday in Houston — would provide either liberation or ignominy. Two defeats and the Sixers would tie the N.B.A.’s longest losing streak, 26 games, set by the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers after LeBron James took his talents to South Beach.

There was a new player to greet, the 22nd to play for the Sixers this season. Casper Ware, a rookie guard from Long Beach State by way of Italy. Players came and went so often — only eight had been around for the entire losing streak — that Philadelphia’s locker room seemed more like an airline terminal. On Monday, Brown had no time for lengthy introductions.

“Nice to meet you,” he told Ware. “Play defense. And make shots.”

A makeshift jersey was waiting. Scott Rego, the equipment manager, thought Ware would join the team a week or so earlier and had No. 12 prepared. But forward James Nunnally came instead, and he took No. 12. So the 2 was stripped off the jersey originally meant for Ware and replaced with a 7. Just like that, 12 became 17.

Ware seemed a bit disappointed. He preferred to have a 2 in his number.

Later, at his locker, Ware appeared excited to play his first game in the league. So what if the Sixers had lost 24 straight when he arrived. His former team, Virtus Bologna, had lost 12 of its last 15 games and sat near the bottom of the Italian league.

“I’m quite sure if we had played as many games as the Sixers, we would have been on the same losing streak,” Ware said with a laugh.

A dry erase board carried a buoyant message: Play Hard, Smart, Together and Have Fun!!

The mood was subdued but hardly morose. Even as the Sixers flirted with dubious history, they also flirted with opportunity. The flip side of this failed season for players was that it served as a hopeful job interview for next season.

Philadelphia was losing as few teams had ever lost, but its players continued to perform with determination and purpose. Some were getting their first or perhaps final shot to prove they belonged in the league. They were flying on charters, receiving good pay and getting every chance to exhibit their skills without the obstructing shadow of a superstar.

“It’s an audition for the whole team,” said Sixers guard James Anderson, a former first-round pick of the Spurs. “A lot of people, all they see is the streak, but we’re out here fighting, trying to stick around in this league.”

Philadelphia’s depleted team was the youngest in the N.B.A., averaging 23.7 years. Two of the most visible and productive players, Evan Turner and Spencer Hawes, were dealt away at February’s trade deadline. Ware was the fifth player signed to a 10-day contract. Eight players on the current roster had spent time in the N.B.A. Development League.

Effectively, Philadelphia had tanked the season, not losing games on purpose but becoming awful in the short term in hopes of becoming good in the long term. It had shed players and any real chance of regular victory to gain draft picks, salary-cap space and a chance to rebuild after two winning seasons in the previous decade.

The last victory had come Jan. 29 on a buzzer beater by Turner in Boston, so long ago that forward Thaddeus Young, the one established Sixer, said, “Tell you the truth, I don’t even remember it.”

While Sixers officials were forthcoming about their strategy and fans appeared patient, criticism has begun to mount from elsewhere. Some saw Philadelphia’s approach, and the N.B.A.’s tolerance of it, as a violation of sport’s implicit contract to put forth a good-faith effort. Others called for a revision of a lottery system that weighted the highest draft picks in favor of the lowliest teams.

Stan Van Gundy, a former coach of Orlando and Miami, recently told a sports conference at M.I.T. that Philadelphia’s rebuilding strategy was “embarrassing.” As the Sixers prepared to play in San Antonio, Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, told reporters in Charlotte, N.C., that he did not believe any team deliberately lost games but that he saw a possible threat to Philadelphia’s morale and development.

“You don’t like to see any team have to go through a losing streak like they currently are and flirt with the longest losing streak in the history of the N.B.A.,” Silver said. “That’s bad for everyone. It’s potentially damaging to the players involved and the culture they’re trying to create.”

Brown would not learn of Silver’s remarks until Tuesday morning. On Monday, he was his usual irrepressible self. At 53, he is handsome, gray, with a Boston accent and a youthful enthusiasm. The losing streak, he said, was a “ghost somewhere out there” but not something he discussed with his players.

The losing streak had brought derision, sure, but also sympathy. Equipment managers from other teams sought to encourage Rego, telling, him, “Tonight’s your night; we’re not playing well,” or putting their arms around his shoulders and saying, “Hang in there; it’ll get better.”

The Sixers’ Thaddeus Young. Of the team’s last victory, on Jan. 29, he said, “Tell you the truth, I don’t even remember it.”

Matt Slocum / Associated Press

For Brown, Monday was a homecoming. He had not been hired in Philadelphia until mid-August. His three children had begun classes, so his family had remained in San Antonio for the school year. Now, for a few days, he could see his wife, Anna, and sleep in his own bed instead of a hotel. His son, Sam, 9, would serve as a Sixers ball boy. His youngest daughter, Laura, would celebrate her 16th birthday the next day.

And Brown would face off with his mentor, Gregg Popovich, the widely respected Spurs coach, who had guided San Antonio to four N.B.A. titles. It was Popovich’s system that Brown wanted to emulate: a motion offense with selfless passing; victory that was reliable and renewable; a practice facility where players entered by fingerprint recognition and shot baskets any time of day or night; a cohesiveness that extended beyond basketball and hinted at the bonds of family.

“I feel terribly for him, but I don’t feel sorry for him,” Popovich said of Brown.

Brown did not want that. He knew what he was signing up for in Philadelphia.

Popovich said, “He understands he’s living a dream and that he’s more fortunate than about 99 percent of the people on the planet.”

As Monday’s game approached, the two coaches and friends spoke by phone.

Don’t worry, Popovich said with an earthy reply. The Spurs would be fully invested.

“Good,” Brown said. “You play ’em all. I want a piece of you.”

Clearly, though, the Sixers figured to be in deep trouble against a Spurs team with Tim Duncan and the best record in the league. With tipoff 15 minutes away, Nerlens Noel, Philadelphia’s 6-foot-11 rookie center from Kentucky, walked into the press room to eat dinner.

Out all season, rehabbing a torn knee ligament, Noel was available only for practice. Brown described him as 80 percent healthy, but added: “Nothing’s really changed with Nerlens. He’s moving along, but to suggest he’s ready to go play a game right now would be wrong.”

Despite Popovich’s assurances to Brown, San Antonio sat three starters — Tony Parker, Danny Green and Tiago Splitter. It was a chance to rest some minor aches and avoid embarrassing a friend.

Only a couple of Sixers fans were evident in the crowd. Kevin Bellew, 36, drove two hours from the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi. He had grown up in Cherry Hill, N.J., outside Philadelphia, and wore a red Sixers cap and a blue T-shirt. He said he agreed with the team’s rebuilding plan.

From left, James Anderson, Casper Ware and the assistant coach Curtis Sumpter at the end of practice Wednesday. The Sixers face the Houston Rockets on Thursday.

Uma Sanghvi for The New York Times

Like every Philadelphia sports fan, he had come to learn a number of unassailable truths. Defeat would be regular and excruciating. Too often, victory would be a trick. It would not bring continued success but beckon that disaster was around the corner.

The 1972-73 Sixers still owned the N.B.A.’s worst record for a full season of 9-73. In 2007, the Phillies became the first professional sports team to lose 10,000 games. If any town understood wounded passion and the need for grumbling patience, it was Philadelphia.

“It’s tough,” Bellew said. “You have to suffer. We’re not like Boston with all those rings. But you stand by your team.”

Through the opening 11 minutes Monday, the Sixers hung close, trailing only 26-24. Then everything went predictably wrong. Philadelphia missed its next 12 shots, including Ware’s first two attempts in the N.B.A. San Antonio scored 19 consecutive points. Talent, experience, familiarity began to prevail. The Spurs’ lead widened to 45-24.

“That’s suffering right there,” Bellew said.

Martin Galvan, 26, sat a few rows behind in a Sixers jersey. He was a dispatcher for a transportation company in Laredo, Tex., and drove three hours to the game with a friend who wore a Spurs jersey.

Mostly, Galvan liked Pittsburgh’s teams — the Pirates, the Steelers, the Penguins. But the insistent play of Allen Iverson had made him a Sixers fan. A framed Iverson jersey hung in his house, Galvan said. On March 1, when Philadelphia retired Iverson’s No. 3, Galvan had his own jersey ceremony.

“I wore it to Buffalo Wild Wings,” he said.

On Monday, Galvan wore No. 1 in honor of Michael Carter-Williams, a guard from Syracuse and a leading candidate for rookie of the year. But this was more than a decade removed from the 2000-1 season, when Iverson led Philadelphia to the N.B.A. finals. Against the Spurs, Carter-Williams shot an anemic 3 for 14 in the first half and Philadelphia trailed, 60-44.

As the Sixers walked solemnly to the locker room, Galvan forgot to take a picture of his favorite team. Someone suggested that he volunteer to Brown to play in the second half.

“Probably,” Galvan said, “he’d be, ‘How much worse could it get?’ ”

In the third quarter, Philadelphia closed within 10 points but grew tired chasing San Antonio’s crisp and ceaseless passes. When the game ended, the Spurs had won, 113-91, and the Sixers had lost their 25th straight.

In the Sixers’ locker room, Young soberly assessed the difference between the two teams. One was the refined product of a first-rate system, the other a temporary collection of mismatched and uncertain pieces. Essentially, they ran identical plays with wildly different outcomes.

Sixers Coach Brett Brown with season-ticket holders. The team has shed players to gain draft picks and salary-cap space.

Matt Slocum / Associated Press

“They know the ins and outs,” Young said. “We don’t.”

The Sixers were now 15-56. Amazingly, it was not the worst record in the league. Milwaukee was 13-58. Hours later, after a Tuesday morning practice, Young called the losing “very frustrating.” But there was no sense in getting angry, he said.

He was only 25, entering the prime of his career. Noel would bring hope and anticipation to next season. Philadelphia had two first-round picks in the coming draft and five picks in the second round.

“You put on your G.M. hat and say, O.K., we have a chance to really build something special here,” Young said. “I don’t think the situation can get any worse than it is now. It can only get better.”

Told by reporters of Silver’s remarks about the losing streak being “bad for everyone” and “potentially damaging,” Brown asked for the commissioner’s exact words. A Sixers spokesman read the quotation from his smartphone.

“Obviously we respect his opinion, but he doesn’t need to worry about us,” Brown said. “We’re fine. We have this thing very much under control. There is no need for panic. Our guys are great.”

But he also cautioned that a turnaround would take three to five years. “To think anything other than that is really naïve,” Brown said.

There would be no immediate attempt to recruit free agents, Brown said. “No free agent’s going to want to come to Philadelphia at this stage,” Brown said. “Why would a good free agent want to come in and be part of a rebuild?”

The previous night, Brown told a story about jogging before each home game in a park near the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia. Once, a man noticed him and began jogging behind, asking: “How long is this rebuild going to take? When are we going to start winning?”

“I had to remind him,” Brown said, “of the difference between tolerance and patience.”

On Wednesday, the Sixers practiced again in San Antonio before heading to Houston for Thursday’s game and a final chance to avoid matching the N.B.A.’s longest losing streak.

“We ain’t rolling over,” Brown said. “I’m at a stage where I’m immune to whatever. I feel so strongly that what we’re doing is the correct path. We came out transparent. It’s going to take time, but we’re building something exciting and it’s ours.”

There were still some issues to sort out as the Sixers flew to Houston. A 10-day contract for Nunnally, the forward, had expired. Philadelphia was expected to re-sign him. For the moment, anyway, no new jerseys would be required.

“We’re getting to the point,” Rego, the equipment manager, said earlier, “where we’re going to have to start giving out Summer League numbers in triple digits.”